If easy jokes or pop catchphrases show up in Reid's strip "The Boiling Point" — which is featured weekly on MT's letters page — it's only because she means to subvert them on her way to striking at the heart of an issue. Doublespeak and spin are among her favorite targets, and she often counters them by mashing them up against images of the ugly truths they seek to obscure. Her cartoons are never glib — they're wordy, meaty; there's a lot going on in them. Even her inky, thick-lined drawings suggest the gravity of her subjects. She's topical but not slavishly so, prefering to address the latest wrinkles in the issues she's passionate about rather than jump on whatever media bandwagon happens to be rolling by. And she's not afraid to make issues personal, even appearing in her own strips from time to time to address the reader directly. In a field of sound-alikes, she's a fiercely singular voice.